https://urbanresilience.site.ox.ac.uk/Vlad Mykhnenko is Professor of Geography and Political Economy in the University of Oxford’s Department for Continuing Education and a Research Fellow in Sustainable Urban Development at St Peter’s College, Oxford. He is an economic geographer, specialising in geographical political economy. Since the early 2000s, Professor Mykhnenko’s academic focus on challenging the conventional wisdom of urban and regional development has expanded from transition economies of eastern Europe (especially, Polish Upper Silesia and the Ukrainian Donbas) to encompass the development phenomena observed in high, low and middle-income cities and regions across the world. So far, Vlad has produced 153 research outputs, in total, containing books, chapters in books, journal articles, published conference proceedings, working papers, research reports, digital artefacts, databases and other publications.
Professor Mykhnenko’s research has generated well over £16 million in external funding, with £2 million as a Principal Investigator (PI). At Oxford, he has served as PI and Consortium Lead of Smart Shrinkage Solutions: Fostering Resilient Cities in Inner Peripheries of Europe (3S RECIPE, €1.7m, 2017-2020) – an interdisciplinary international research project funded by the JPI Urban Europe and the UKRI Economic and Social Research Council, before pursuing a series of industry-funded research projects on the future of cities, work, ESG, metaverse, money, government, data privacy and customer experience. Vlad’s current externally-funded research initiatives focus on green steel – rebuilding Ukraine’s iron and steel sector post-war without the use of fossil fuels – and sustainable urban development in Kazakhstan.
Professor Mykhnenko holds a PhD in Political Economy from Darwin College, the University of Cambridge (2005); an MA in International Relations and European Studies from the Central European University (CEU, Budapest Campus, 1999); an MA (1998) and a BA (1996) in International Relations from Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv.
Vlad currently serves as Academic Director for Social Sciences in the Oxford University Department for Continuing Education. Having joined the Department in January 2017, he has sat on various Departmental and Oxford University-level committees, including the Research Degrees Panel. In 2018-2021, he served as the Department’s Director of Graduate Studies for Postgraduate Research Students (DGS-R). Vlad’s previous academic and research appointments were at the University of Birmingham, Al-Farabi Kazakh National University in Almaty, the University of Nottingham, the University of Glasgow and the CEU Centre for Policy Studies in Budapest.
Professor Mykhnenko regularly acts in an advisory capacity for the public, private and civil society sectors, local and national governments, intergovernmental organisations and multinational enterprises. He currently serves as a non-executive director of Oxford International Study Abroad Programme Ltd., an EQAC-accredited short course provider.
In 2015, Vlad was appointed by the Secretary-General of the UN Conference on Housing and Sustainable Urban Development to a High-Level expert group of 200 urbanists to shape the New Urban Agenda – a universal framework of actions for housing and sustainable urban development, which was officially adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in December 2016. In addition, he has sat on the Advisory Group on Declining Cities at the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (2014-2015).
More recently, Professor Mykhnenko has given expert evidence in public to the UK House of Commons, in connection with the Foreign Affairs Committee inquiry into the challenges of Recovery in Ukraine. He has also advised the Mayor of Mariupol and the local authority in exile on Mariupol Reborn – a post-liberation revival strategy for the pulverised east Ukrainian city. Furthermore, Vlad has provided his expertise to the Bridges for Ukraine: Accelerating Opportunities for Reconstructing Ukraine White Paper by UCL’s Institute for Global Prosperity, in collaboration with the UK Department of Business and Trade, sharing innovative visions for rebuilding a Ukraine that is fit for the challenges of our planet’s future. In 2025, he joined The Lancet Commission on the Future of Ukraine’s Health System as one of its Commissioners. This Lancet Commission’s mandate is to define a bold, long-term vision for Ukraine’s healthcare and well-being.
In 2023-2025, Professor Mykhnenko sat on the Shrinking Smartly and Sustainably consultation panel at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), helping regions and cities facing long-term population decline and ageing adapt in a way that is economically viable and environmentally responsible.
Vlad is originally from Donetsk, Ukraine.